Boys soccer: St. Charles East shuts out Geneva
George Maridis called his shot.
Maridis, a junior at St. Charles East, saw his soccer coach Vince DiNuzzo during first hour at school Tuesday.
"I'm going to score two goals tonight," Maridis told his coach, smiling.
Maridis did just that. The first opened the scoring against Geneva during the Tri-Cities soccer night hosted by St. Charles North. The second gave the Saints a little more breathing room in what became a 3-0 victory.
"That's cool he was able to do that," DiNuzzo said. "Credit to him and the guys around him for finding him and putting him in position to score."
Maridis recently returned from a hip pointer injury that sidelined him for 8 games.
"He is just getting back in form," DiNuzzo said. "He just keeps getting better for us, he gets more comfortable in terms of playing in our system. He played great tonight."
The game opened in terrible weather conditions. Playing in a driving rain, the game was halted five minutes in and delayed for half an hour.
"Once the sirons go off it just kills all your momentum," Maridis said. "It is especially hard on turf, harder to control the ball in the rain. And freezing rain too. Your feet are just soaking wet, your hands are cold too."
Neither team scored in the first half, but Maridis quickly changed that in the second.
With the rain letting up to a drizzle, Maridis fed his longtime club teammate Luke Schnitker on the left. Schnitker got the ball back to Maridis at point-blank range in front of the net, and Maridis buried the shot for a 1-0 lead with 34 minutes remaining.
"That's pure chemistry right there," Maridis said. "They (Geneva) just came kind of flat the second half and our coach told us to make sure we came out hustling and we just took over the game after the first goal."
The Saints (6-9-5) controlled the play most of the second half. Maridis doubled the lead with his left foot, blasting a shot from about 10 yards past the top of the box into the upper 90 with 11 minutes left.
"Just a perfect outside swing," Maridis said.
Truitt Battin scored the final goal two minutes later, also using his left foot to finish after a slick move to shake his defender.
"I knew I'd have a good chance to score," Battin said. "I beat the last defender with scissors and I had both feet which gives me a good options to score."
The victory gave the Saints the Fox trophy by virtue of their 3-0 win over St. Charles North and 2-2 tie with Batavia.
"I think it's great because in the three seasons I've been here we haven't won it," Battin said. "It's a great experience for us after we started out struggling a little."
"These Tri-Cities teams are pretty competitive," Maridis said. "We beat North and Geneva both 3-0 which is pretty impressive."
"It's special for the kids, our school," DiNuzzo said. "We didn't win conference, that was one of our goals. Beating these two teams says a lot about our character. We're playing our best soccer now."